Just Exes

by Charity Ferrell

  His face pales when he sits next to me and drags me into his arms. “There’s nothing worse than a mom who purposely endangers her child. Any parent who does that is a self-centered piece of shit.” It doesn’t feel weird when he tilts his head down and kisses the top of my hair. Surprisingly, it feels comfortable and comforting. “What you do is extraordinary, Lauren. Hard on the heart but extraordinary.”

  “You do the same,” I whisper, snuggling into his side. “You’re just as upset as I am.”

  He squeezes me. “I’m not someone who likes people hurting others. Trust me, there are times I’ve had to hold myself back from snapping, too.”

  I want him to tell me more, but I also don’t.

  Police officers are a constant in the hospital, and some of their stories make my skin crawl.

  I wipe my eyes and slowly pull away, sniffling. “Thank you for listening to me.” I nod toward his tear-and mascara-stained tee. “And for letting me ruin your clothes.”

  “Anytime. You either ruin them or steal them. Nothing has changed there.”

  “For some reason, when you steal a guy’s shirt, it makes it a hundred times more comfortable.”

  “You’re welcome to them anytime.” He stands up and helps me to my feet. “Shower is fixed and all yours. Is there anything else you need while I’m here?”

  Pull me back into your arms.

  Stay here with me.

  I shake my head. “You’re probably just as tired as I am.”

  He rubs my back. “Get your shower. It’ll help you relax.”

  I undress, and the water pressure is perfect when I step underneath the hot water. My tears fall down the drain, and I wish it’d take the memory of today with it. These are the days I don’t love my job, when I question if I went into the right field, and when I wonder if I should take another career route.

  I made the decision to set my feelings aside when I decided to become a nurse. Caring for my patients is priority number one. At times, it is the hardest part of the job.

  Not having emotions would be beautiful because pain is so ugly. Watching neglect and not having the freedom to scream about it at the top of your lungs is painful. It’s hard, having a heart when people come in without one.

  And that’s what I feel like happened today.

  My sobs grow stronger.

  I fought for that baby.

  At least, in the short time he was with us, he had people fighting for his life, for his safety, for his happiness.

  The hard part was that we failed him.

  His mother failed him.

  The system failed him.

  And those are the cases that are the hardest to fight at work.

  I wash my hair while releasing all my frustrations and scrub my skin harsher than necessary when cleaning it. I shiver as I dry off and throw on my pajamas.

  Gage is sitting on the perfectly made, untouched bed when I get out, and a glass of water is sitting on the nightstand next to it.

  “You haven’t slept in the bed yet?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “I crash on the couch.”

  “Why?”

  I shrug. “The memories. The sheets still smell like you.”

  “Do me a favor and make them smell like you, so I have something to look forward to when I move back in.”

  “What? You said the place was for rent.”

  I had been right. He never intended to rent it out. Gage loved this place, loved his space, and would never let anyone take it over. Even when he moved. Neither would his father.

  Amos had numerous offers to rent it when Gage left and turned them all down, hoping his son would one day return.

  “My dad was thinking about it but changed his mind. You’re more than welcome to stay until you find a place though. He enjoys my company in the house.”

  I narrow my eyes his way. “I don’t understand. Why would you give it up and let me stay here?”

  “It’s late. You’ve had a hard day.” He kisses my forehead. “Catch some sleep. Let me know if the shower gives you any more problems, if you need someone to talk to, anything, okay?”

  Fourteen

  Gage

  I grab my phone from the nightstand when it beeps.

  Unknown: You up?

  I start to text back, Who’s this?, when another text comes through.

  Unknown: It’s Lauren.

  Fuck. I was afraid of having her number.

  Me: Wide awake. What’s up?

  Lauren: Care to give a girl some company?

  Me: Can’t sleep?

  Lauren: No.

  Me either.

  Me: On my way.

  I jump out of bed, fully aware it’s a bad idea. I step into a pair of gym shorts and throw on a shirt before quietly slipping out of the house and into the warm summer night. Grasshoppers chirp as I stroll down the walkway and then up the stairs.

  The door is unlocked, and she’s on the couch, her legs brought up to her chest. Hair wet. Eyes swollen.

  “You know,” I say, walking into the room, “the chances of you falling asleep are higher in a bed than on the couch. I can almost guarantee that.”

  She pats the cushion next to her. “Hey, I find this couch comfy. I can’t believe you haven’t changed anything in here.”

  “I have yet to find the time to hone in on my interior design skills.” And I want to keep the memories. Even though they haunt me like a motherfucker, I want them all. “I had nothing in Chicago that reminded me of home, so the recollection is nice sometimes.”

  Curiosity crosses her face, curiosity of what my life was like in Chicago, but she stops herself from asking those questions.

  Not that I blame her for her interest. It’s what every Blue Beech resident has wanted since I came home. Answers. A report of what I was up to. Questions of why their golden boy got dumped, moved thousands of miles away, and then never came back for years—not for holidays, not for reunions, not even for my father’s retirement party from the electrical company. Instead of celebrating that with him here, I flew him to me. I kept in touch with no one, didn’t join any social networks, and became a stranger to the place that had raised me.

  She clears her throat. “You want to watch a show or movie?”

  I’ll do anything to get her mind off of her horror of a day. I collapse on the other side of the couch and keep my eyes on her while making myself comfortable. “True crime still your jam?”

  “My jam. My peanut butter.”

  “Your pickles on your peanut butter, you mean?”

  A flicker of a smile comes my way. “My pickles on my peanut butter.”

  Lauren is the only person I know who enjoys PPB & Js—pickles, peanut butter, and jelly. She’s most likely the only person on the planet who does, considering I have yet to meet someone else with that indulgence.

  “True crime it is then,” I say. I dramatically shake my head. “You and your serial killers.”

  She snags the remote off the coffee table. “Blame yourself. You’re the one who got me obsessed with all those documentaries. My nickname at work is Nurse Paranoid because I assume everyone is a serial killer.”

  “Those shows are what made me decide to go into law enforcement.”

  My mom was the ringleader in our true-crime obsession. I grew up watching them and, as Lauren and I grew closer and older, we shared our loves of different interests with each other.

  I got her hooked on true crime, and she got me hooked on strawberry-banana milkshakes.

  She messes with the remote and scrolls through the guide on TV. “See, something good did come out of our documentary binges. Do you have any new favorites?”

  What I want to tell her is no, I don’t because I stopped watching any shows involving true crime years ago. Not because it reminded me of her, but because it became my life. I’ve seen it firsthand—the murders, the bribery, all of it. I don’t though because she needs this. Her mind deserves to venture into somewhere else, and if it means I have to sit through s
omething that might give me flashbacks, so be it.

  “The choice is all yours,” I answer.

  Her feet drop as she lies back on the couch and brings herself to the fetal position after making her selection. A thin blanket is wrapped around her shoulders, her head rests on a pillow, and her attention goes to the TV.

  I stay in my corner, my feet crossed at my ankles, and I surprisingly stay calm. Maybe it’s her presence. Maybe my attempt to soothe her has done the same for me.

  Two documentaries later, she’s snoring. We made no light conversation. It was all solitude as we sat in the dimly lit room. I quietly slide off the couch and tiptoe out of the loft even though all I want to do is stay there, drag her into my arms, and create more memories on that couch.

  I don’t bother turning on the lights when I make it into my room and fall on the bed. My heart feels lighter tonight, and a smile is twitching at my lips as I think about how great it is to be around Lauren again. It doesn’t take long for me to fall asleep, which is out of the ordinary.

  Too bad my nightmares still come back to haunt me, sucking away all the calmness she gave me.

  It’s the same conversation.

  The same scene that plays over and over again.

  “What did you do, Missy?” My voice grows louder, angrier, more venom flowing with every sharp, nervous word spit out. “What the fuck did you do?”

  “It’s all your fault, you know,” she fires back. “If you had loved me right, none of this would’ve happened!”

  “You did this out of spite for me?”

  I move closer at the sound of sirens in the background. Determination thrums through me to get to her before they do, and I drop to my knees, prepared to plead if need be.

  “Where is he?” I stress, tears biting at my eyes.

  Her smile is wicked. “You’ll never know.” Those four words kill me yet satisfy her as she sings them out.

  I’m covered in sweat when I wake up. I jump out of bed and throw my soaking shirt off. Then, I go to the kitchen for water and decide I’m in need of fresh air.

  Fifteen

  Lauren

  “Oh, come on,” I mutter during attempt number five of starting my car.

  Can anything else go wrong this week?

  My apartment catching on fire.

  Check.

  Ex back in town.

  Check.

  Having one of the hardest shifts in my career last night that emotionally drained me.

  Check.

  My car playing the game of not wanting to start.

  Check.

  The sun beams down on me. It’s the butt crack of dawn, which means it’ll be an inconvenience to wake anyone up and ask for a ride. I grab my bag from the passenger seat and start to rifle through it, searching for my phone. I hope it’s not too complicated for them to find a replacement for me at the last minute.

  I unlock my screen at the same time I hear the sound of a door slamming. I look through the windshield to see Gage stepping off the porch, a coffee cup in his hand, and sweat trickling down his chest.

  The TV was still on and Gage was gone when I woke up on the couch this morning. I don’t know how much longer he stayed after I fell asleep, but if it weren’t for him being there with me, I wouldn’t have slept at all last night. He was there for me as I broke down and cried in his arms, and the memories of when he’d done that in the past haunted me while I got ready for work.

  I drop my phone back into my lap as he hops down the steps and meets me.

  “Car trouble?” he asks.

  I cringe as I attempt to start my car again, and it fails. I dramatically grip the steering wheel. “Yep.”

  “You know what the problem is, don’t you?”

  “If I did, I would already be gone.”

  “It won’t start as a result of its ugliness. It’s decided that it’s finally time to go to car heaven.”

  “Shove it,” I grumble. “It’s too early to hear you passing judgment on my car.”

  “You have to work?”

  “Supposed to, but I was about to call off. I can’t expect anyone to make an hour round-trip to take me back and forth to work.”

  “I can. My shift at the station doesn’t start for another two hours and will most likely end before yours does.”

  I think back to what happened last night. The way he held me as I cried, how the memories of when we’d hung out crept back into my soul. Getting attached to Gage will only ruin me later. It’s dangerous for us to get close again. He hates me. And what if he wants to know why I broke up with him? It’ll kill him that I have to keep my secret.

  Everything is moving too fast. We went years without speaking, and now, all of a sudden, we’re talking daily.

  “Thank you for the offer, but I can call off.”

  “Lauren, I don’t have cooties.”

  “You have much more than that.”

  My heart. A cock I can’t stop thinking about.

  “In my truck now.”

  I lose sight of him as he moves and taps the hood of my car.

  “Let me change real quick.”

  I jump out of my car. “You don’t have to do this.”

  He turns around and starts walking backward. “It’s no big deal.”

  “Why are you being so nice to me?”

  “As I told you before, I’ve been asking myself the same question since I arrested you.”

  His truck is unlocked, and I throw my bag onto the floorboard. Gage comes back, dressed in jeans and a tee. Two coffee cups are in his hand.

  “In case you want one for the ride,” he says, handing it to me.

  I take a drink and groan. “This is delicious.”

  “My dad likes that sweet shit, which I can’t stand. I think the creamer is cinnamon roll flavor or some shit.”

  I sip the coffee and straighten my legs out while he pulls out of the drive. He hasn’t turned on the radio or initiated any other conversation after the sweet-coffee talk. I can’t stand silence. I’d rather face an awkward conversation than awkward silence.

  “What have you been up to since … you know?”

  He glances over at me. “Since you dumped my ass?”

  Well, shit. Maybe the silence would’ve been a better option.

  “Since we broke up,” I correct.

  “I moved to Chicago, worked a job in law enforcement, and then decided it was time to come home.”

  “That’s it? Anything else happen in all those years?”

  “Nothing I want to talk about.” He focuses on the road. “What about you?”

  “After graduating from nursing school, I snagged a job in the ER at the hospital, moved back home, and my apartment caught on fire, which lead me to crashing at my ex’s place.”

  “That’s it?” he asks, throwing my words in my face. “Nothing else happened in all those years?”

  “Hudson got engaged to Stella Mendes,” I add, moving the attention from me to my family.

  There’s been nothing too exciting in my life. During college, I immersed myself in my studies, and now, all I do is work to keep myself busy, so I don’t think about my high school sweetheart. I’ve been disciplined enough not to look him up, though the urge has hit me so many times.

  Admission time. I did look him up twice when I drank too much. The first time was the day after I graduated from college. God, I wanted to share the news with him. He had known it was my dream. The second was a year ago when my sister-in-law passed away from breast cancer. She’d died young, in her early thirties, and regret hit me that day. I wanted to apologize for what I’d done.

  I couldn’t find anything on him. He had no social media accounts, nothing. Gage was a ghost to everyone I knew since we broke up.

  “I heard about their engagement,” he says. “News travels fast when a Hollywood celebrity gets engaged to a Blue Beech local.”

  “Lucy died,” I go on, my voice lowering as my chest aches.

  “I heard about that as well.
My heart broke for your family when my dad told me.”

  “Dallas had another baby with Stella’s friend and personal assistant.”

  “Damn, I have missed some shit.”

  “Care to share anything else personal about you?”

  “Not much to me, Dyson. I’ve never been engaged to a celebrity or knocked anyone up.”

  I wait for him to elaborate, wishing on anything that he’ll give me more, but he doesn’t.

  “One-sided conversations are so fun,” I comment.

  “The hell do you want me to tell you, Lauren? What do I owe you?”

  This is not a conversation I want to have first thing in the morning before working a double.

  I cross my arms and shift in my seat to look out the window. “I wish I had never told you anything. I should’ve moved on, gotten married, had fifteen kids, so I could prove to myself and everyone else that I could be happy without you.”

  “Yeah, well, I wish I could say the same shit, but my love for you, my fucking obsession for you, has never allowed that. My love for you has ruined my entire fucking life.”

  The hell?

  “What did I ruin for you? You could’ve easily gotten married and started a family. Don’t blame that on me. It was your stubbornness.”

  “I was married.”

  I suddenly feel like I’m suffocating. “Say what?”

  “I got married.”

  “You’re married?” I shriek like I misheard him.

  “No, I got married and am now divorced.”

  “You’re lying.” The words sound like whimpers leaving my lips.

  He shakes his head. “I’m not.”